WWF concludes its awareness raising campaign in the Danube Delta

With winners identified, pupils knowing how a sustainable city should look like, WWF wraps up its campaign for kids and teenagers in the Danube Delta ‘We want to live in sustainable region!’

Kids had three months to imagine, write about and prepare presentation about their dream eco-city in the region. Young city planners embarked on solving transport, employment and energy problems, showing out-of-the box thinking and impressive understanding of local economy.

Members of Ismail Ecoclub suggested shaping a city as ameba, so that each district is surrounded by nature. Buildings would have green walls and inner structures would be 3D-printed. Artificial meat grown in the labs will substitute intensive cattle farming which will reduce methane emissions and address animal welfare concerns. Vertical agriculture with 5-6 harvests a year will provide all citizens with healthy food all year round. Pupils from Chemistry club at Chervonoyarsky school believe that snail farming can become successful business and provide jobs for those living in their eco-city. Almost all participants mentioned bicycles as the future environmentally friendly mode of transportation.

More than 800 school-children participated in the campaign. “Nowadays there are almost no projects addressing environmental awareness of children and teenagers, - thinks Kateryna Kurakina, co-author of the educational materials that were distributed during the campaign. - School program contains only general information that is not tied to any region and does not include new trends and concepts, such as, for example, ecological footprint or climate change. Schools do not have sufficient financial resources to publish their own informational materials or organize trips in to the nature. With our campaign we aimed to close those gaps”.

Campaign included clean-up actions, lessons on climate change and the natural treasures of the Danube Delta; participants polled their neighbours about their climate change attitudes and discussed various solutions to environmental problems in the region.

Educational campaign was realized as part of the project ‘Climate proofing the Danube Delta through integrated land and water management’.